How to Access Cataloged and Uncataloged Recordings

The University of North Texas Music Library owns and/or provides access to sound recordings in a wide variety of formats.  These range all the way from cylinders and 78 rpm records to LPs, CDs, and streaming audio.

Please come to the service desk in the Audio Center to ask for help.  If you have call numbers for recordings you need, a staff member can usually find them for you.  Most of our recordings are available for checkout; exceptions are reserve items or very special items with non-circulating status.  You are of course welcome to listen in the Audio Center.  This is particularly helpful if you need to listen to an LP and you don't have a record player at home.

The CDs and many of the LPs in our general collection are listed in the online catalog.  (Please visit our tutorial if you need more information about how to use the online catalog to customize your search for recordings or other music materials.)  Many additional LPs are listed only in the card catalog in the Audio Center.  Call numbers for CDs start with LPCD; call numbers for LPs start with LPZ.  These are local call numbers created here at UNT, and they enable us to put the recordings in findable numerical order.  They do not serve to classify the recordings, however.  (We use Library of Congress call numbers to classify our music books and scores; the result is that similar items are on the shelves together.)     

CDs from our general collection are housed in the Audio Center, but many of our recordings in older formats are in remote storage.  If your search results show the location of the item you need as remote storage, this means that it is not housed in the Audio Center and cannot be accessed immediately.  To obtain it, please fill out the Library Materials Delivery Request Form. The library courier will then retrieve it from our remote storage facility and deliver it to the Music Library.  This usually takes 24 hours or less during the week.  You should receive an e-mail message when it has been delivered. In case you didn't get a message, however, you are welcome to phone the Audio Center at (940) 565-2857 and ask if the item has arrived, or just come by the Audio Center 24 hours after you submitted your request.

The 78 rpm records in our collection are kept in our remote storage facility and are not cataloged.  Instead, they are shelved first by label and then by manufacturers' numbers.  You may know of a specific 78 you need to listen to, or you may want to find out if there are 78s of certain pieces or certain performers.  You can use various sources to identify specific 78s, such as the numerous discographies in our Music Reference collection.  Also, we own an important source that cites virtually every 78 ever made, the Rigler and Deutsch Record Index, which we have on microfiche.  If you need help identifying a 78 and finding out whether we own it, please consult Andrew Justice, Librarian for Audio and Digital Services.  He can be reached at (940) 369-7061 or ajustice@library.unt.edu  If we have a 78 you want to hear, we can play it for you.

Many LPs in our special collections are in remote storage; they are not in the online or card catalogs.  They are shelved by label and then by manufacturers' numbers, so that staff members can search for them.  Therefore, if you know of a certain LP you need to listen to that is not in the online catalog and not in the card catalog in the Audio Center, please do not give up.  It might well be in our special collections.  If you need help finding out whether we own an LP that is not in the catalogs, please consult Andrew Justice at the above number or e-mail address.  If you need help to determine whether an LP or CD of a certain piece or performer exists, you can consult any member of the Music Library full-time staff.